knowed YOU to think of nothing yet, that I hadn't entertained in
some fashion. Of course, civilization is a-creeping up to the
mountain, and I reckon by the time Lahoma is my age it'll be playing
an organ in church. But she's at the age that calls for quick
work--she's got the rest of her life to settle down in. Most all
of a person's life is spent in settling and it's befitting to lay
in the foundation aforetime. Look at that dear girl in The Children
of the Abbey, all them love-passages and the tears she sheds--she
was being a young woman! What would that noble book of been had
that lovely creature been shut up in a cove till nineteen year of
age? Is Lahoma going to have a chance like that amongst these
settlers? Will she ever hear that high talk, that makes your flesh
sort of creep with pride in your race when you read it aloud?"

"Do you want Lahoma to have a lover, Brick Willock?"

"Bill, if he is fit, I say she ought to have a chance."

"And where are you going to find the man?"

"I'm going to help Lahoma find him. I'm like you, Bill, I hates
that lover like a snake this minute, though I ain't no idea who,
where, or what he is, or may be. I hates him--but I ain't going to
stand in Lahoma's way. No, sir, I 'low to meet civilization
half-way. There it is--look!"

Willock stood erect and pointed toward the plain, where perhaps
twenty tents had been pitched within the last two weeks. Bill gave
an unwilling glance, shrugged his shoulders disdainfully, and
resumed progress up the difficult defile.